Seeking Advice on Character Design

I am designing a character for a 2D fairy-tale game with a bit of a dark/spooky theme, and we are trying to create a 9 year old little boy with a bowl cut for the player character.

I thought I was successful in drawing a little boy, but I've been told that it looks like a little girl with make-up. I was trying to make the character look tired and worn out, but still young.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I think its the eyes and mouth that makes it look like a girl, i think the black around the eyes makes ppl think about makeup and somehow the mouth also looks a bit girlish.
Hard to tell exactly why though : )

 

I think virror hit all the points I was going to make. Also may want to bring the hair line closer to the brows and possibly have a couple stray clumps dropping down further.
It's definitely the eyes, brow and the mouth.

 

Agreed with @virror and @theANMATOR2b. Definitely has a lady-boy kind of vibe to it. If I could expound on what they've said a little bit, I would also say the chin has a feminine quality to it. When I think of a young boy, I think of a soft, rounded face, not a tapering, delicate chin.

Personally, I have the opposite problem with my characters. I can never make my women look girly enough! They look like guys with long hair, haha.

 

Very basically, make male features square and female curvy. Most of your features, eyes, mouth, brows etc are curvy giving him a female look.

I just did a quick search for an example image and found this page;

http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/the-differences-between-male-and-female-portraits--vector-14954

It describes the differences between male and female in a lot more details than I could in a forum post.